Monster Hunter: This Dragon's Built Different-Chapter 414: The Arrival of Yet Another Mad Dog
Kulve Taroth’s brazen, completely undisguised behavior naturally caused quite a stir—especially since the temporary residence she had chosen lay extremely close to the nest of another Elder Dragon.
A warm-up battle thus erupted without any warning.
Even the once-formidable Nergigante, when facing this so-called "Mother Goddess," had been beaten into severe injury and forced to flee, let alone the fact that this opponent was merely an ordinary Elder Dragon.
Multiple ordinary Elder Dragons being able to contend with a normal Disaster Elder Dragon relied on their mutual coordination—using quantitative accumulation to produce a qualitative change—in order to oppose a single Disaster-level Elder Dragon.
But in a one-on-one confrontation, unless it was a Nakarkos in a weakened state or a baseline Gaismagorm, any ordinary Elder Dragon facing a Disaster-level Elder Dragon would almost invariably be crushed.
Not to mention that this Mother Goddess had spent years opening up and cultivating ley-line energy. Just how powerful she truly was remained an unknown.
From the life-energy aura Logan perceived, the Kulve Taroth currently in the Elder’s Recess looked, for all intents and purposes, like a moving miniature ley line. Even if she could not quite compare to Zorah Magdaros during this Elder Crossing, the difference was minimal.
She was far more exaggerated than that weakened Nakarkos.
The battle between the Elder Dragons ended quickly. In barely half an hour, the victor was decided. Even after the fight, Kulve Taroth showed no restraint at all, continuing to radiate her own aura and boldly proclaim her presence.
This was clearly a display of absolute confidence in her own strength.
Only—
As Logan pondered whether he should learn a thing or two from Kulve Taroth and be just a little more arrogant himself—
After all, when an Elder Dragon is not arrogant, it is because it has a clear understanding of its own strength.
An ordinary Elder Dragon is not arrogant because it knows that, before the true apex of the ecological niche, it is at best only a slightly special ordinary Elder Dragon.
But now, he—an undisputed founder of a new ecological system, the master of a new form of energy independent of conventional attribute energies, a being truly standing at the pinnacle of the ecological niche, one who would absolutely not die so long as he did not court death—had no such need for restraint.
If he still could not be arrogant even now, then would all this growth not have been for nothing?
With that thought, just as Logan was about to imitate Kulve Taroth and, without the slightest concern, openly release his aura to show the surrounding creatures that he existed—
Thanks to the powerful eyesight he had retained ever since his days as a Fire Wyvern, at the edge of his vision a large spiky hedgehog, casting a red gleam that reflected the surrounding volcanic magma, was flying toward the direction where Kulve Taroth was.
"Nergigante? No—Ruiner Nergigante!"
His pupils locked tightly onto that figure, and Logan’s eyes were filled with disgust.
He was certain this was a Nergigante he had never seen before, not his former "good brother."
Those mostly-spines-turned glittering, diamond-hard spikes, the thicker muscles, the larger body—its extraordinariness was obvious from appearance alone.
And from the direction it was coming from, it was clear this thing had come from the Guiding Lands.
Strictly speaking, Ruiner Nergigante was not an "advanced form" of Nergigante, nor was it the kind of subspecies relationship seen between a normal Rathalos and an Azure Rathalos.
In terms of ecological niche, it had not transformed from super–Elder Dragon level into a Disaster-level Elder Dragon.
In a certain sense, its relationship with an ordinary Nergigante was more like that of a special individual.
An ordinary Nergigante, after countless battles and with life energy extremely abundant, would ultimately undergo simultaneous changes in both its regenerative shell and its spines, shifting from black thorns into diamond-hard spikes that were tougher and far more destructive.
It could be said that a Nergigante, as long as it kept trying to prey on Elder Dragons and did not die in the process, was very likely to become such an individual.
Compared with those individuals called "Tempered"—which, in reality, were simply individuals that had grown in regions rich in life energy and used life-energy reinforcement to become stronger—Ruiner Nergigante was the true literal meaning of "Tempered."
Tempered among the Tempered!
And it was precisely because it possessed combat methods beyond those of an ordinary Nergigante—greater strength and agility—together with Nergigante’s already exaggerated Regeneration—
With all of those boosts, Ruiner Nergigante gained the capital to contend with a Disaster-level Elder Dragon.
As for whether getting beaten counts as "contending," in any case a normal Disaster Elder Dragon would also find it very difficult to kill a Ruiner Nergigante; before it could no longer endure, it certainly could be considered contending.
An ordinary Elder Dragon could not even take that much of a beating!
The appearance of Ruiner Nergigante caused the emotions Logan had just worked up to settle down once again.
Being arrogant was not a problem, but if such a meaningless release led to being targeted by an even stronger "mad dog," that would truly be a bad deal. That kind of negative return was not a loss he was willing to take.
Someone else shared Logan’s sense of disgust—an old friend.
Crouched within a nest littered with fragments of Bioenergy Crystal, the Nergigante raised its head to watch the Ruiner Nergigante fly past overhead, then viciously tore into the corpse of a Brachydios clutched in its forelimbs.
As a species whose numbers were strictly regulated by the will of nature, nearly every Nergigante harbored no small degree of hostility toward its own kind.
Moreover, Nergigante’s highest-priority prey was Elder Dragons, and the number of Elder Dragons, compared to ordinary creatures in this world, could be described as exceedingly scarce.
Thus, in order to survive more effectively, every Nergigante possessed its own "territory."
The Nergigante, which had successfully wrested the New World as its "territory" from its old mother, could not possibly have even the slightest goodwill toward this stronger counterpart who had long roamed the Guiding Lands.
If not for the fact that this time the will of nature had issued a summons—effectively informing the Nergigante of certain details in advance—then the very moment Ruiner Nergigante arrived in the Elder’s Recess, it would likely have already rushed forward to fight it head-on.
"Roar~~~"
Within the Bioenergy Crystal nest, the dull sound echoed again and again.
...
For several consecutive days, aside from occasionally sensing the auras of Kulve Taroth and Ruiner Nergigante, Logan surprisingly did not perceive the life-energy presence of any other Elder Dragons.
This was somewhat different from what Logan had initially expected.
Given the cautious operating style of the so-called boss of nature, at the very least there should have been three or more Disaster-level Elder Dragons, along with a group of ordinary Elder Dragons as support, to be worthy of Xeno’jiiva’s status. Why, then, were the only Disaster-level Elder Dragons just him and that rich lady?
To say that the New World had only the two of them at the Disaster level was something Logan did not believe.
Setting aside the fact that the life-energy aura of this rich lady was very different from the one he had encountered back in the Wildspire Waste—clearly not the same individual—
There were also the Dalamadur he had met back then, and the Amatsu he had encountered years earlier.
Why had these top-tier Disaster-level Elder Dragons not come? With them present, would surrounding and eliminating the newly emerged Xeno’jiiva not have been a sure thing?
Something must have happened in the New World that Logan did not know about, causing the boss of nature to now have only him and Kulve Taroth left—those it could command and put forward!
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